Overview
PCI-X is the successor to the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Bus Specification, the current standard that enables communication between peripheral devices and the computer processor. A major improvement over the older PCI technology, PCI-X enables significantly higher performance with transfer rates of up to 1.06 GB per second.
PCI-X System Architecture is a detailed and comprehensive guide to the PCI-X technology. It highlights the many changes and improvements from PCI 2.2 to PCI-X, so that you can build on your PCI knowledge to master PCI-X with greater ease. The book discusses the drawbacks of PCI and how PCI-X solves these problems, achieving faster transfer rates. In addition, it presents in-depth information and practical guidance on the PCI-X transaction protocol, device configuration for PCI-X, load tuning, PCI-X bridges, error detection and handling, and electrical issues.
You will find specific information on such key topics as:
- Device types and bus initialization, including Hot-Plug PCI-X initialization
- Dword and burst commands
- Bus arbitration, latency rules, and burst transactions
- Transaction termination
- Split completion messages
- 64-bit transactions
- Bridge and non-bridge configuration registers
- Load tuning, including adjustable fields and registers, split completion buffers, and adjusting timeslice values
- PCI-X–to–PCI-X bridges
- Handling master abort, attribute phase parity errors, and split read errors
Anyone who designs or tests hardware or software that involves the PCI-X bus will find PCI-X System Architecture an essential resource for understanding and working with this important technology.
Synopsis
The CD-ROM includes a 70-minute PCI-X overview video by Tom Shanley, featuring an introduction to the basic concepts underlying PCI-X bus technology. Topics covered include terminology, detection of PCI-X-capable functions, the blockoriented bus, transaction types and phases, a detailed explanation of an example transaction, and how split transactions replace the delayed transactions of PCI.
Anyone who designs or tests hardware or software that involves the PCI-X bus will find that PCI-X System Architecture is an essential resource for understanding and working with this important technology.
MindShare's PC System Architecture Series is a crisply written and comprehensive set of guides to the most important PC hardware standards. Books in the series are intended for use by hardware and software designers, programmers, and support personnel. Each title explains the architecture, features, and operations of systems built using one particular type of chip or hardware specification.
Booknews
PCI-X is the successor to the peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus specification, the standard that enables communication between peripheral devices and the computer processor. Assuming prior knowledge of PCI, this guide describes how PCI-X achieves faster transfer rates, and details the PCI-X transaction protocol, device configuration for PCI-X, load tuning, PCI-X bridges, error detection and handling, and electrical issues. The CD-ROM contains a 70-minute PCI-X overview video. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)